Google announced that Google News plans to return to Spain early next year after the country overhauled its online copyright laws in line with EU regulation.

As per the new regulation, Google news will no longer have to pay a fee to Spain’s entire media industry and can instead negotiate fees with individual publishers. Some may want to charge Google for sharing stories in Google News, and Google can pay them or exclude them, depending on its preference. Other outlets will no doubt waive these fees, judging that the traffic offered by Google News outweighs any lost advertising revenue.

Google says it’ll be working in the coming months with publishers “to reach agreements which cover their rights under the new law.”  The return of Google News to Spain is just a single skirmish in a long running battle between Europe’s media industry and Big Tech.

To try and rebalance the playing field, many countries have passed or toyed with legislation similar to Spain’s in recent years, including Germany and Belgium. In 2019, these efforts were folded into an EU-wide reform of online copyright law known as the Copyright Directive.

A provision which, in its worst reading, requires tech platforms to check all data uploaded to their sites against copyrighted work. However, the Copyright Directive also dealt with payments to media companies for use of their content, and it’s this part of the legislation — which Spain recently adopted into national law — that has ultimately led to the return of Google News.

It’s far from the only attempt by countries to give more power to their ailing but vital news industries. In 2020, Google announced new payments to publishers in Germany, Australia, and Brazil, and earlier this year signed a similar deal with French papers.  Such agreements will no doubt continue to be passed and then superseded as the news industry changes and evolves.